Tremendous progress has been made over several decades in the study of biological materials ranging from amino acids, to proteins, to the entire human genome. In spite of the great strides that have already been made, cost-effective and timely analysis of biological materials frequently is still not a reality. For the myocardial infarction victim waiting in the hospital emergency room or undergoing a heart bypass operation, the time needed for conventional blood analysis in order to detect the telltale enzyme signature of a heart attack may be too long. Myriad other circumstances can be observed in which analytical test results on biological materials simply take too long to generate, aren't available where needed, and cost too much. Furthermore, conventional diagnostic tests typically are encumbered by their own particular collection of analytical inadequacies, leading to false positive and negative results at levels that are both intractable and statistically significant.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for analytical apparatus that can be used to detect, identify, characterize and otherwise analyze biological materials, including for example amino acids and proteins.